


Ghosts

by mharris



Category: Marvel (Comics), Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Feels, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt, Recovery, dead best friend feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-13 23:41:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14123367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mharris/pseuds/mharris
Summary: Kate works out the nuances of being a super hero in the wake of grief.





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this before Cassie showed back up again in the comics, so now it exists in that nebulous space between the 2015 YA run and Ant-Man #6

    Dead best friends create ghosts in hallways they've never seen, because they're seeing it through your eyes. Cassie would have hated the paint in Clint's hallway, would have wrinkled her nose at it and laughed because Cassie didn't actually hate anything. Kate's fingers trail along the wall a little lower than normal because that's where Cassie's hand, out stretched and feeling, would have hit. Kate doesn't know she's possessed by ghosts, but they walk with her everywhere.

    Kate's sure she can hear an unearthly wailing every time she sees Scott Lang. Every now and again, Kate and Scott have lunch together. It's not something they want to do, they just fall together, two desperate people seeking something neither has the solution to. It was an exchange, the dead for the living. Kate thinks it an unequal trade, thinks Scott would agree with her.

    The only thing that could pull Billy out of _his_ depression was something that still occupies _Kate_ 's nightmares. Kate avoids Avengers Mansion because all she sees are ghosts.

-

    Kate hung up her mask, but kept her bow and quiver in the trunk of her car. It used to ride shotgun except when Cassie was there, but then Cassie wasn't and it never reclaimed its place. Afterward, Kate pulled over to the side of the road and opened her trunk at least a dozen times, but never took out the bow.

    For two weeks after, Kate spent her time tripping after two bit criminals because maybe if she ran fast enough after bad guys the ghosts couldn't keep up. She wonders if that's why Tommy runs. Every arrow in a bad guy is another bad guy that can't hurt someone else, and Kate realizes she can't keep up like this. She puts the bow down not because she's afraid to pick it up, but because she isn't.

The bow will sit in the trunk of her car for nearly eight months.

-

    Kate will think about space, and about other dimensions. She'll wonder if there's a dimension out there where Cassie's footsteps aren't just in her head. She'll be too afraid to ask though. She'll wonder what Cassie would have made of Noh Varr. Probably would giggle as Kate whispered secrets to her.

    Kate will wonder most of all, what Cassie would be like then. She hears ghosts clamoring for attention all the time, but it's the stale imprint of a moment captured in time. In all irony, Cassie never got to grow.

-

    Kate stands over the trunk of her car staring at the bow and the arrows dumped from the quiver. She can feel it pushing through her veins, lighting her on fire from the inside out. She wants them in her hands and she wants to run across rooftops and she wants to- she doesn't know. She slams the trunk shut again.

-

    It's not Clint that gets her to pick up the bow again, it's Spiderman, actually.

    "You keep slamming your trunk like that and something's going to break," he called from somewhere behind her.

    Kate looked around, then after half a second of 'duh kate, you dummy,' looked up.

    Spiderman sat on a fire escape with his legs dangling over the edge, mask half up and sandwich in his hand. "I don't think it'll be your car, either."

    "Yeah," is all Kate can manage to say. She half sat, half leaned against the trunk of her car and crossed her arms. "Yeah."

    "Why do you do it?" Spidey says around a mouthful of sandwich. "I've seen you at it a couple times."

    That perks Kate's interest, and she looks up at him sharply.

    "You watching me?" she asks squinting up at him.

    Spiderman immediately starts waving his hands, then stops to put his sandwich down, then waves a little more.

    "No, no!" he says, trying to empty his mouth. He swipes a gloved hand across his mouth and cheeks, "No, just that, I've seen you at other crime scenes, same thing. You react really well, then, you slam that trunk closed."

    Kate looks up at him like he's slapped her inthe face and then she sinks just a little bit lower into herself.

    "So what is it?" Spiderman asks, picking up his sandwich again.

    "Used to be in the business," Kate says, mostly to the sidewalk.

    "There isn't really a _used to_ ," Spiderman says, and Kate looks up at him again. "Either it's in you or it's not, and if it is, it doesn't ever really leave you. So, what is it?"

    Kate sighed. "My best friend died in this business, I don't- I can't- I put down the bow. I shouldn't be doing this."

    Spiderman's shoulders fall a little, "Why? Do you feel guilty?" Spiderman lowers his sandwich and swings his feet a little.

    "No," Kate said, chewing her lip. "The man who killed her should be the only one who feels guilty. But he won't, because I don't think Dr. Doom is capable of feeling guilt."

    "You're the other Hawkeye." Spiderman says. "You're talking about Scott Lang's daughter, right?"

    "Yeah," Kate says softly.

    Spiderman nods, but doesn't poke at it. "Loss is tough. I've seen a lot of good heroes go down because they can't take the weight of it."

    Kate frowned and stared at the dirty concrete in the alley, but didn't say anything.

    "That's not it, though." Kate said at last, "My entire team blames themselves. They all feel responsible, but, I don't. I want to be back out there working, but why would I want to be a part of something that took her from me? I shouldn't want it."

    "Everyone grieves differently, Hawkeye."

    Kate stares at the concrete, and breathes the words in.

    "After something big happens in our line of work, you have to reassess yourself, you know? Understand who you are now with this new thing in you. Not everyone reacts the same to the same things. Not everyone freaks out and alters reality."

    Kate laughed at that. "Hey, some of my best friends came out of that freak out."

    Spiderman nodded, "See? Bad things happen, but they aren't the only things."

    Kate nods.

    "How do you handle it?" she asks him.

    Spiderman shrugs and chews. "Pretty sure I'd go mad if I didn't keep going."

    Kate lets out a dry chuckle. "Yeah."

    "Yeah."

-

    Two days later Kate gets a text:

 

    >>Come by my place tomorrow afternoon. bring my bow.

 

    <<I don't know where you live, and do you mean MY bow?

 

    >>#50 on 89th, and how about OUR bow?

 

    Clint doesn't ask questions. Turns out Clint is as bad at talking about feelings as she is, which she finds a relief because she's not sure what she'd say if he did. Instead, Clint teaches her to steady her heart when firing, teaches her to handle trick arrows, teaches her to fire while falling through the air. (The last one was borne through experience, not lesson planning.)

    Clint's apartment becomes a home Kate didn't know she needed until the day she pulls her car over and when she slams the trunk shut the bow is in her hand. She goes home and scrubs the blood off her boots and it's not until she's complaining that she has nowhere to put her boots to dry in Clint's sunless apartment that she realizes that _here_ was _home_.

    Cassie laughs in her ear as Kate stands in the door of the bathroom looking for an unoccupied spot of sun. It leaves her feeling warm, and whole, filling every inch of her skin for the first time in a long time. Kate knows ghosts will always be just out of her line of vision, but she now also knows they're not the only thing she sees.

    Kate leaves her boots by the door, not for the last time.

**Author's Note:**

> I know literally nothing about streets and addresses in NY, please forgive me. If you wanna offer something better though, I am all ears my friend.


End file.
